


a Noble tradition

by theclaravoyant



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Christmas, Donna Doesn't Remember, Gen, Meeting Old Companions, Thirteen Meets Donna, where are they now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 18:01:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17105477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theclaravoyant/pseuds/theclaravoyant
Summary: The Doctor loves Christmas, so Ryan, Yaz, and Graham take her to a local Christmas market on Earth, where she runs into some unexpected old friends. (*Very* old friends.)





	a Noble tradition

**Author's Note:**

> I was prompted to write a fic where Thirteen meets Donna, and I really got into a nostalgic Noble family mood with it. I wouldn't technically call this fluff, but it's bittersweet with a positive outlook and lots of wholesome platonic goodness. Enjoy <3
> 
> (but please note Donna doesn't remember the Doctor, because I enjoy suffering too much)
> 
> Find me on tumblr or pillowfort @theclaravoyant

“I love Christmas,” the Doctor remarks cheerfully, beaming as she looks around at the market Yaz, Graham and Ryan have brought her to. There are baubles and strips of tinsel draped from every snow-and-pine-covered surface, bells jingling, and carols warbling over a distant speaker. “So colourful. And everybody’s nice to each other, mostly. Not that people should need an excuse, but…”

She trails off, distracted by a tray of gingerbread men someone is carrying past. She follows it to apatisserie stall and Graham, ever grateful for the opportunity for food, jumps at the chance to follow her while Yaz and Ryan trail a few steps behind, admiring the handmade wreaths and glowing lights and hats with unnecessarily long ear flaps that decorate the nearby stalls. By the time they reach the Doctor, she has already picked out their gingerbread folk, and passes them around enthusiastically. They are fresh and warm in the frosty air, and Yaz and Ryan accept them with delight as the Doctor begins to regale them with a story of a town called Christmas on a planet oh so far away from here - a tale Graham briefly interrupts to pass her a jam donut shaped and decorated like a Christmas tree, and which as a result, diverges into one about the time a Christmas tree nearly killed her. Naturally.

“Hold on,” Graham remarks. “All that funny business at Christmas in London a few years back, was that all you?” 

“Well-“

“Oh yeah!” Yaz cries. “Pig in a spaceship? Disappearing hospital? My cousin was in there, you know. Said something about alien rhinoceros?” 

“Well, it was- I mean, I was _there,”_ the Doctor explains as all three of them look around at each other, impressed. “And it was actually more of a space vampire. The space rhinoceros were just looking for her.” 

“Oh, well that’s alright then,” Ryan shrugs, smirking as the illustrious, ancient, alien defender of earth takes a gigantic bite out of the tree-shaped donut and in doing so, all but buries her nose in jam and bright green icing. Her eyes are bright with mirth for a moment and then - mid-chew, like a deer on high alert - she pauses. 

Graham, Yaz and Ryan eye each other warily. 

“I know that voice,” the Doctor whispers. 

“We about to become one of those stories then, Doc?” Graham offers. “Assassin Santas running about or something?” 

He glances up and down the fairway of the market. Ryan is wondering how effective a nearby baguette would be as a weapon. Depends what they’re facing, he supposes. He can already see Yaz mapping the exits, figuring out which would be best to heard civilians toward in the case of an emergency, but then the Doctor leaps into action. 

“Quick!” she orders. “Hide me!” 

“What?” 

She runs a lap around the display table, trying to figure out where to go, and settles for nicking one of those beanies from the neighbouring stall instead, with the really long ear flaps. This one is deliberately designed to look like a cartoonish reindeer, with stuffed antlers sewn on and all, and it really would look utterly ridiculous if they weren’t all so busy trying to gauge the danger as the Doctor bustled around and muttered to herself. Probably not all that dangerous then, or she’d be rallying them instead, but try as they might to ask her what is going on she - as per usual with the first go round of things - doesn’t quite have time to clearly explain. 

“What’s the point of that?” she frets, tugging at the hat. “He doesn’t know what I look like. It’s fine. It’ll be -“

She cuts herself of when she realises that the man in question is already at the stall, staring her in the face. He’s got on an old hand-knitted sweater with pine trees stitched into it, and red foam antlers around his head. He beams, full of merriment, and gestures to the treats on the table.

“These yours then?” he asks. “Love the hat!”

_“Wilf.”_ She doesn’t mean to say it, doesn’t mean to give herself away, but how can she not? She has missed this family for so long, and this is the man she _died_ for all those years ago. She just knows that he’s been watching the sky for her, all this time, and she wonders if he knows how grateful she is for that constant reminder that she is not alone. 

Wilf, of course, is good natured but confused by all the carryings-on. He laughs it off as the Doctor releases him from the hug, and watches her with a strange expression. But he is very bright, and there’s something about this strange woman, so he tries something. Nods to Graham and suggests - 

“All these young whippersnappers with you? You should take them round the corner, there’s one of them police boxes, like the ones from when we were young. Amazing. It’s like going back in time.” 

He sets his eyes very deliberately back on the Doctor for that last part, and she’s smiling and almost crying at the same time. Oh, she has missed him. But now he knows, so she opens her arms and gestures to her new self. 

“I told you I was going to change, didn’t I?” 

“Blimey,” Wilf remarks. “Did a good job of it. Even if you are dressed like a rainbow upchucked on a fisherman.” 

“Told you,” Ryan mutters. Yaz elbows him. 

Wilf’s face lights up upon seeing they’re with the Doctor, and he gleefully shakes everyone’s hands and introduces himself to the full circle. 

“This is Wilf, he’s an old friend,” the Doctor adds. “Very old friend.”

“How long’s it been?” Wilf wonders. 

“A long time,” the Doctor breathes. “Decades. Centuries. Depends who you ask, really.”

“And you still remember us old things?” 

He looks so surprised, it almost hurts, and the Doctor wonders if he’ll ever know what it feels like not just to miss someone, but to miss missing them… and then to get them back, if only for the briefest of moments. A smile touches her lips and she promises - 

“Always.” 

Wilf smiles back, with a solemnity that suggests he knows something of what she’s going through, at least enough to begin to imagine, and without further prompting he offers - 

“She’s good, you know. Doing well. Started up her own contracting place a few years back, business services they call it - managing temps, bookkeepers, IT, all that stuff. She’s in charge of the whole thing, and getting quite a good reputation too.” 

“Good on her,” the Doctor praises, and she can’t help but smile. “Helping people, _and_ ordering them around all day. Sounds right up Donna’s alley.”  
  
Wilf laughs. “It’s a struggle sometimes, but she’s really grown, you know. I thought it would all go away after… after you left… but she is finding her feet again. Really taking responsibility for herself and grabbing life by the horns, eh? Bloody fierce, she is, I knew she could do it.” 

_“THERE you are!”_  

Before the Doctor can so much as open her mouth to respond, there is an interruption. It’s a new voice, but an old one. It’s seared into the Doctor’s soul. ( _Speak of the devil,_ Wilf remarks fondly.) Upon hearing it, the Doctor freezes. Should she run? Hide? Dive behind the table? Suddenly it’s too late and that red hair is already here. A quiet voice whispers in her head: _she doesn’t know what you look like._ It is going to be okay. She doesn’t know. She can never know. 

“What’s all this, then?” Donna wonders, looking around the gathering that has formed. Only half-jokingly, she points at Wilf and asks the Doctor, “Is he bothering you?” 

 _She can never know._ Words freeze on the Doctor’s tongue. 

“I wasn’t bothering anyone, sweetheart,” Wilf insists. “We just got to talking, that’s all.” 

“Bonding over crazy Christmas headgear, I see,” Donna remarks, eyeing the Doctor’s hat. Just as the Doctor is about to regain control of her voice, a pattering of tiny footsteps come crunching through the snow, and Donna sweeps a little blonde boy into her arms. 

“This is my great-grandson Devon,” Wilf introduces, because of course, as far as Donna is concerned there’s no need. What is puzzling is the gestures he is making, until he explains a moment later, “He is deaf. Donna adopted him earlier this year. This is our first Christmas all together as a family!” 

The Doctor beams, but finally manages to stumble into a response. Quite convincingly if she does say so herself, and with signs to boot.

“That’s brilliant! Merry Christmas! Have some gingerbread, on me!” 

“Don’t mind if I do,” Donna jests. “Devon, what do we say to the nice lady?” 

Blushing, Devon musters up the courage to say: 

“… I like your hat, Nice Lady.”

The Doctor laughs. “He’ll fit right in, this one.” 

Ryan hands her a cookie, which she passes onto Devon with pride. Donna nudges him. 

“What do we say?” 

“Thank youuuuuuuu,” Devon recites. 

“Thank you,” Donna repeats genuinely as she takes a cookie for herself and, at this collection of strangers’ insistence, another for Wilf. “We should be going before Mum loses her head. Come on, Granddad.” 

 _“Come on, Granddad!”_ Devon mimics in an exasperated tone. Yaz grins and hides it behind her hand, and Wilf sighs dramatically and makes a show of adhering to his dear family’s wishes. He spares one last glance for the Doctor, and a fond nod; a promise of all the things they’ve left unspoken. The Doctor stares after him for a long moment, until bittersweet tears fill her eyes beyond seeing, and then she wrenches the hat off her head because if she thinks of how Wilf-like it is for one more _second…_  

She blinks the tears away, and turns back to her friends. 

Ryan, Yaz, and Graham say nothing, and they’re all looking at her with such sympathy in their eyes it almost makes her tear up again. Instead, the Doctor takes a deep breath. 

“I warned you to be sure when you travel with me,” she reminds them. “It doesn’t always end well.”

The others share a look. They could take this moment to ask any number of questions - was it Wilf who had travelled with the Doctor, or just Donna? Why did Wilf remember, and not Donna? What exactly did Donna not remember and why did the Doctor look like _that_ about it all? 

Instead, Ryan offers encouragingly; “I dunno, she looks alright to me."

The others nod in agreement and the Doctor finds her spirit is lifted. Donna is driven, successful, and loving, and so very loved, and as painful as things had been ending between them, the Doctor could hardly ask for a better life, even for her best friends in the world.

Gingerbread, surely, is the least she can do. 

“Shall we get a box of these to go, then?” she suggests. 

“I don’t know about you, Doc,” Graham puts in, “but right now I could go for something a little stronger than gingerbread.” 

Yaz nods. “Here here.” 

“They do mulled wine at the pop-up round the corner,” Ryan informs them. “Tis the season and all that, right?” 

“Right,” Graham agrees. “I’m sold.” 

“Me too,” Yaz says, and all three of them turn to look at the Doctor, who tucks a gift box full of gingerbread under her arm for good measure, dumps a frankly ridiculous amount of money into the cashbox, and gestures for her friends to lead the way.


End file.
